page_title: Central African Republic
section_title: Bokassa and the Central African Empire (1965–1979)
hierarchical_section_title: Central African Republic / History / Since independence (1960–present) / Bokassa and the Central African Empire (1965–1979)
caption_attribution_description: English: Jean-Bedel Bokassa (1970s) Русский: Жан-Бедель Бокасса (1970-е)
context_page_description: The Central African Republic is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south, the Republic of the Congo to the southwest and Cameroon to the west. The CAR covers a land area of about 620,000 square kilometres and had an estimated population of around 4.7 million as of 2018. As of 2020, the CAR is the scene of a civil war, ongoing since 2012.
  Most of the CAR consists of Sudano-Guinean savannas, but the country also includes a Sahelo-Sudanian zone in the north and an equatorial forest zone in the south. Two-thirds of the country is within the Ubangi River basin, while the remaining third lies in the basin of the Chari, which flows into Lake Chad.
  What is today the Central African Republic has been inhabited for millennia; however, the country's current borders were established by France, which ruled the country as a colony starting in the late 19th century.
context_section_description: On 31 December 1965, Dacko was overthrown in the Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état by Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who suspended the constitution and dissolved the National Assembly. President Bokassa declared himself President for Life in 1972 and named himself Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire (as the country was renamed) on 4 December 1976. A year later, Emperor Bokassa crowned himself in a lavish and expensive ceremony that was ridiculed by much of the world.
  In April 1979, young students protested against Bokassa's decree that all school attendees would need to buy uniforms from a company owned by one of his wives. The government violently suppressed the protests, killing 100 children and teenagers. Bokassa himself may have been personally involved in some of the killings. In September 1979, France overthrew Bokassa and restored Dacko to power (subsequently restoring the name of the country and the original government to the Central African Republic). Dacko, in turn, was again overthrown in a coup by General André Kolingba on 1 September 1981.
caption: Jean-Bédel Bokassa, self-crowned Emperor of Central Africa.[10]
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